Times are hard

...especially if you're a bird. In case you haven't noticed, it's flipping cold outside.

I've been doing my bit to help at home. Garden birds here have been offered a full variety of foodstuffs, including apples, table mix (includes wheat, oats, sunflower hearts, maize etc), black sunflower seeds, fat balls, fat block things and, best of all, porridge oats. Porridge oats are dirt-cheap and loads of birds eat them. Even Reed Buntings, as I've discovered.

Much of the water locally is frozen up. It's hitting birds like Kingfishers, wildfowl, waders and herons especially hard, as they simply can't feed.

From the Bedsbirds email group:

"Sadly a frozen dead Grey Heron was seen by the bridge still standing in the water tight up against the bank and still in hunting posture"

There are plans in place to help Bitterns, amongst other things; they're getting sprats put out for them at key locations. Which reminds me - stay off the whitebait.

Perhaps things will get better this week, as it's due to get up to about 3 degrees C on Friday!

Despite - or perhaps because of - the terrible weather, there have been interesting things to see. The garden list for 2010 (if there was such a thing) got off to a good start with our regular Marsh Tits putting in an appearance, plus the rarer species House Sparrow, Starling, Sparrowhawk and a female Bullfinch briefly. The latter is a garden mega!

We've had up to three Reed Buntings coming to feed, too. I've even seen them seeking out the seeds from the long grass surrounding the pond, which was nice to see. Now the garden's untidiness is justified entirely.

I visited my parents on New Year's Day. This was a very pleasant experience, but tinged with jealousy. They have two Fieldfares coming to their windfall apples. We don't get Fieldfares in our garden, only in the big tree briefly. If that was not bad enough, one came within three metres of the house to eat pyracantha berries. And I had left my camera at home.

Next morning I saw a female Blackcap coming to bathe in their pond. Haven't had a wintering Blackcap in my garden. Grrrr,

On Thursday lunchtime I watched a flock of 30 Redwings burrowing into snow-covered leaf litter in search of bugs to eat. They were getting right among the leaves, so must have dug through the snow to expose the leaves and their inhabitants. I like to think that birds are tougher and more adaptable than we give them credit for...

photo taken with Canon EOS 30D

The pain, the pain...

The first ringing session of 2010 in our garden yielded lots of interesting things, but the pain was all mine.

We caught a whopping 39 Blue Tits, and my fingers still sting from their frenzied pecking... 14 of those were birds we'd caught before (known as 'retraps').

The three Robins have appeared from somewhere - we hadn't caught one since March. I've seen four at once in the garden in the past week, alternating between an uneasy truce and all-out war.

We trapped another three juvenile Marsh Tits - they just keep coming!

Starling (adult female) and Great Spotted Woodpecker (adult male) have been infrequent visitors lately, so it was lucky to catch them. I received a good pecking from them both, with the woodpecker drawing blood and leaving my fingers covered in pock-marks.

One of the Greenfinches (pictured) was already ringed, but not here! Del had caught it in his garden, 6 km away. That means it's a 'control', the first for the garden!

We missed a female Reed Bunting, which dodged the net, and a Sparrowhawk that's been hanging around for the past few days. Just seen it this afternoon, though - you can't catch 'em all.

The totals:

• Blue Tit, 25 new ones and 14 we'd caught before
• Great Tit, 12 new and 8 retraps
• Robin, 3 new
• Marsh Tit, 3 new
• Dunnock, 3 new, 1 retrap
• Coal Tit, 1 new, 2 retraps
• Starling, 1
• Great Spotted Woodpecker, 1
• House Sparrow, 1
• Greenfinch, 2 new, 1 control
• Blackbird, 1 retrap

- a total of 79 birds caught in 50 feet of net - our biggest-ever catch.

photo taken with Canon EOS 30D

Goodbye, 2009...

January is Big Garden Birdwatch time and a gang of Jackdaws turned up to demolish my bird food stocks


This bee found some early-flowering Chaenomeles in February


At the end of March, I spent a few days in and around Tarifa in southern Spain. Here's a view across the Estrecho to Morocco


Tried a bit of pond-dipping in April, and found lots of these guys - diving beetle larvae.


Also in the garden, this maturing male Broad-bodied Chaser perched on a nettle on a May day


In June I somehow managed to take this arty photo of a Blue-tailed Damselfly, which won The Guardian's competition and got printed! Woohoo!


July was the time for Large Skippers and long evenings



While in August, we watched broods of young Swallows in the garden


The summer was over, but there were still Small Coppers to see in September


And October brought its own delights in the form of autumn leaves


We caught some more House Sparrows during ringing in November


Er, here's one I took earlier this month: hard weather in December made life hard for birds
You can browse the whole year's photos here

Ice

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

It's cold outside

Going outside is interesting now we've experienced an Extreme Weather Event (TM). People living outside the UK may be amused to hear that we've had about five inches of snow locally (though some other areas have had almost twice that) and again, we can't really cope.

I managed to get to work (where I took the above photo) in about twice the normal time but we got sent home early in case it got any worse.

At home, I've been out in my jimjams (and a fleece) to feed the birds before doing anything else. At the moment we've got black sunflower seeds, peanuts, niger seed and a fat-filled coconut out, and I've also found some porridge oats and sultanas (I'm not sure if anything has eaten the sultanas - maybe the Jackdaws).

It looks festive and fun for us humans, but I'm sure the birds don't appreciate the thick coating of white stuff everywhere. Hopefully my small efforts will help see them through the tough conditions.

Who scared away all the birds?

photos taken with iPhone 3GS + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

A tail of two Marsh Tits

This morning, the circumstances were finally right to get some more ringing done in the garden.

Conditions were not ideal - it's a bit windy today - but the weather has conspired against, well, everybody lately, and we seized the chance (tomorrow's supposed to be even worse).

Each time, we seem to have one species which outnumbers all others. It was Greenfinches last time (51 Greenfinches, 8 other birds), Blue Tits in February and January. And so it was again today: we caught 29 new Blue Tits and three 'retraps' that we'd ringed before!

Now, my fingers hurt from a thousand tiny perforations inflicted by the 'cute' little fellows. Most people think "Awww! A Blue Tit! How lovely!" It's just not true...

Next up were Great Tits, with 15 new birds, two retraps and one which seems to be a control. That's a bird ringed by somebody else, somewhere else. It's not likely to have come very far, but it'll be interesting to get the details in the near future.

It was also good to catch two Marsh Tits. I'd seen one unringed bird in the garden, furiously cacheing sunflower seeds; we caught one unringed bird and retrapped one of the three we caught back in January. Photos below.

Almost forgot to mention that the first Marsh Tit (and about four Blue Tits) was caught while we were still putting our net up - we were holding the other end of it!

Interesting that we did not catch any finches, though as I look out of the window now, there are a few Chaffinches and Greenfinches around.

So, the totals were:

• Blue Tit, 29 new, 3 retraps
• Great Tit, 15 new, 2 retraps, 1 control
  
• Coal Tit, 5
• Blackbird, 2
• Marsh Tit, 1 new, 1 retrap
  
• Wren, 1
• Dunnock, 1

which makes 61 birds, our second highest total ever.

A total of 327 birds have been ringed here in seven sessions since November 2007.

Scruffy tail of juvenile Marsh Tit (hatched this year)


Neater, broader tail of adult Marsh Tit
photos taken with Canon EOS 30D

Jackdaws rule the roost

The birdfeeder seems to be depleted fairly quickly these days. There are a few Chaffinches and Greenfinches around, but I think the main culprits are probably the Jackdaws (pictured) and a couple of Magpies. The Jackdaws are quite bold but the Magpies flee as soon as they spot me...

photo taken with iPhone 3GS + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

Fly Agaric

photo taken with Apple iPhone 3GS

A lunchtime walk

I took the less hilly route


Sun's gone in again...






Fairy satellite dish, pointing south










photos taken with iPhone 3GS

Phone + telescope + double glazing

Lots of Chaffinches around the garden at the moment, it seems.

photos taken with iPhone 3GS + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

Autumn

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D

Leaves 'n' stuff

Here's a brief digest of my wildlife experiences over the past couple of weeks...

• Enjoying beautiful Japanese maple leaves still on a tree at The Lodge
• Saw a Stoat climbing about 30 feet up a big pine tree right outside my office window. It seemed totally at home and scampered up as happily as any squirrel. I suppose this must happen more often during the bird breeding season, but it was new for me...
• Also in Stoat News, I saw my first garden Stoat, trying very hard to catch birds
  
• Acquired a dead Long-tailed Tit (which had flown into a car and broken its neck), now in residence in my freezer. I wonder how much it would cost to get it stuffed?
• Celebrated six years of ringing at Beeston last weekend by catching the first Redwing for the site! That was after about 30,000 Redwings were counted over Sandy in one day. Sadly I missed all that
  
• Watching squirrels carrying sweet chestnut cases - covered in big spines! - around. They must really like the contents to put up with the spikiness...
  
• Tawny Owls quite vocal at the moment - sounds like there's a female in our big ash tree. Wonder if she roosts in the hole used by Jackdaws in spring?
• One of the Great Tits we ringed in the garden in August has been found dead, just down the road, after crashing into a window, while one of 'our' Greenfinches has been caught three miles away, by Del who rings here!
  
• Awaiting the annual invasion of Harlequin ladybirds trying to get into our house...
  

photo taken with Canon EOS 30D

Cornwall 2009

The Brisons and Cape Cornwall, as seen from Nanquidno


Sennen Cove, home for the week

St Ives, and pumpkins in one of its greengrocers




Curlew at the Hayle Estuary - taken with the iPhone through my scope, Not too bad,,,

Hoverfly

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Mist clearing

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640